Monday 10th
My Monday begins with an unexpected ordeal in the cosmetics aisle of the Via Principe Eugenio local supermarket.
My moisturiser has run out. I need moisturiser. Unfortunately, Italy finds it necessary to store moisturisers behind glass. Why? It’s not for us to question; maybe Garnier is viewed as a danger to the children of Italy. I don’t know. Anyway, the two people behind the information desk do not speak English, and it takes a lot of miming on my part before they realise that I need the cabinet opening. Maybe my ridiculous display of unlocking a door and moisturising my face was understood straight away, and they just prolonged it for humour –nothing else of note seems to happen at 10am on Mondays in Esquilino.
Eventually the cabinet is opened, but this is not the end, because I have no idea which of the many creams in front of me is moisturiser. There are hundreds (not quite). So the miming starts again.
Miss Super Mercato Worker can only offer me one solution, however: ‘Crema notte?’
No, I do not want night cream. How old does she think I am?
I pretend to vigorously rub my (facial) cheeks.
‘Crema note?’
‘Non...’
She hands me a bottle of anti-aging cream.
No! For goodness sake!
Feeling like I possibly should buy some night cream/ generic anti-aging product now that it has been made so clear that I need it, I grab the first likely looking, British-branded bottle that I can and beat a hasty retreat. Feel like I have been there a very, very long time.
***
My day gets weirder.
Lidia, later, as we leave the apartment to pick the girls up from school: ‘Lucy. I like your socks.’
‘Pardon?’
I look down at my feet. I am wearing the faithful India pumps and black tights. I am mystified. ‘Shoes?’ I offer.
‘No... these.’
It turns out she is talking about my tights. Black tights. She ‘likes’ them. How can a person ‘like’ a pair of tights?
My mystification grows. But I let it slide.
Half an hour later, walking to the orange garden with B&B and their friend Martina (of Lago Bracciano fame): ‘Look!’ one of the twins yells from somewhere behind me. ‘Legs!’
All three of them begin to pluck at my tights in obvious confusion. It is as though they think my legs have turned black. This is SO WEIRD that I absolutely don’t know what to do.
Alberto, when he arrives at the orange garden a few minutes later: ‘Lucy, strange socks. Are you not hot?'
It is freezing. I am stood next to Lidia, who is wearing jeans, a coat and a scarf, and is shivering.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON.
‘Erm,’ I say. ‘No, it’s cold today.’
‘But it is like spring for you, yes?’
‘Well... no. It’s like autumn.’
‘Oh.’
Silence, broken only by a surreal army of tourists on segways that at that moment floats in through the gate. Segway army rolls through the garden towards the view of St. Peter’s Basilica, and I wonder how a world without the basic necessity of tights would even function.
Benedetta starts to cry about something (this is a very, very regular occurrence, and only ever last a few seconds) and Alberto says, ‘I can no longer sleep in the bed, I ‘ave to sleep on the floor because of the nightmares of Benedetta. It is getting so bad. Since the summer, she ‘ave trouble sleeping. ’
Good lord, poor Bene. I don’t really know what to say. What a bizarre day.
***
Tuesday 11th
On Tuesday morning Lidia and Alberto inform me that they are worried about my health. Why?
It transpires that I am certainly going to catch a cold, because I keep coming down to breakfast with wet hair and no jacket.
Downstairs. Breakfast and Alphabet House are in the same building.
Lidia also worries that I haven’t brought enough clothes with me when I say I need to buy tights, and then points me in the direction of Oviesse, where presumably the staff won’t look at me like I’m crazy for buying ‘strange socks’.
***
After a successful browse in Oviesse (it reminds me of a slightly more expensive H&M, with better stock) I head down Via Merulana with the vague notion that I might visit a church that Lidia has pointed out as being home to a statue by Michelangelo. I don’t know what the church is called, and we have only ever driven in its vague vacinity –so my chances of finding it are slim at best.
In the end, it doesn’t happen. I don’t know where I take my wrong turning (possibly somewhere near San Giovanni) but I end up in a part of Rome I’ve never seen before, near the ministry of tourism. I walk around for a while, before ending up at Piazza rei di Roma, a huge square with a playground in the middle of it. Leading off it is a wide shopping street. I have absolutely no idea where I am, but it doesn’t matter. It is refreshing to just walk, sometimes. Eventually I see a sign for San Giovanni in Laterano and head towards it. Coming at it from the opposite direction, from outside the old city walls, I realise that I have been walking around the shopping area that Lidia pointed out a few days ago. So, success!
I head back to a lunch of whitebait and tomato salad, then spend the afternoon writing a ‘local tips’ guide for Lancaster freshers, which I post on TNS. Here’s the link – http://www.thenationalstudent.com/Advice/2011-10-11/18_tips_for_lancaster_freshers.html
***
After gymnastics that evening, as we are driving home, we stop off at an art shop so Lidia can buy some exercise books for B&B. In the car while we wait, I try to teach them a few more phrases. Bea can’t be cajoled into repeating anything, but I successfully get Bene to say ‘Where is mama? Buying a book’, ‘coming home from gymnastics’, and ‘there is mama!’ She seems to be picking it up surprisingly fast. When I have bundled them out of the car and into the hotel ten minutes later, Bea is in a foul mood – bottom lip out and refusing to speak to anyone. I get the feeling it was because I have been heaping praise on her sister after her mini-English lesson success. As we are going up in the lift I say, ‘Why is Bea sad? I like happy Bea more. Bene, do you know why Bea is sad?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bene says.
Bene doesn’t know.
It takes me a few seconds to realise the significance of this, that is, Bene replying in ENGLISH to a question I had posed, also in ENGLISH. And how quickly she responded! This is such a breakthrough, and I don’t even have a gold sticker to give her. Instead I teach her how to say ‘I am very good at English’ and she mutters it to herself all the way into the apartment. And then I tell Lidia and Alberto how good her English has been today, and hope that they understand. She carries in being angelic all through bathtime and the five stories. Really hope she doesn’t have nightmares tonight.
***
Wednesday 12th
On Wednesday I have my standing lunch date with Ashley and Laura in Largo Argentina. I decide to use the morning to visit the Pantheon, which my map tells me is only a couple of minutes walk away from the square, down a cobbled street.
I’m not really sure what the Pantheon is –apart from being a fairly impressive ruin. It is closely set between crumbling orange apartment blocks and shops selling leather, much like the Trevi Fountain is. I have a wander around the outside, and then realise that I have approached it from the back. The front is awash with tourists and guides holding up coloured handkerchiefs like matadors to reel them in.
I go inside and discover that it is, of course, another ancient church (Lidia later tells me that the majority of art in Rome is collected in its churches). It is also said to be the best preserved building in Rome. It contains the tombs of Victor Emanuel II, the first king of Italy and the namesake of what seems like half this city, his son Umberto I, and the Renaissance painter Raphael. It also has a huge and completely deliberate hole in the roof. I pay two Euros for headphones, and they tell me that, although in the past it has been rumoured that no rain water ever falls through the hole, this is not true (no shit –they should’ve been here in July) and that the basilica actually has a concave floor so that rainwater will flow into a puddle in the centre. Underneath the ornate red and black floor the sophisticated Roman drainage system still exists.
The history geek in me finds this interesting, sorry.
The Pantheon and still is working Catholic church, and is also known, although I doubt by many, as the Basilica of Maria and the Martyrs. The decor inside shows the movement away from classical antiquity, towards a more recognisable Christianity.
Raphael’s tomb is found towards the back on the left hand side, and is engraved with the inscription (in Latin) ‘Here lies Raphael, by whom nature feared to be outdone while he lived, and when he died, feared that she herself would die.’
This is all very heavy stuff, and after a wander around the streets outside (I stop at Arte 5 and stock up on vintage-y notebooks; I’m going through about one a week here) I am very glad to meet Ashley and Laura for lunch. We go to a pizza restaurant, where we find a nine euro deal that includes bruscetta, pizza and beer. Marvellous! The pizza is good, and Ashley tells us a life affirming story about her fiancé, who she first met and fell for in school, before moving to France, getting engaged to someone else, breaking it off, moving home and re-meeting Amos by chance.
That’s fate, that is.
After Ashley goes back to work Laura and I head back down past the Pantheon and the letcherous waiters (‘Helloooo pretty, London?’) towards Grom, a gelato shop that she recommended we visit. Apparently it is the best gelato in Rome, but I have heard this already and I have some scepticism. I order two scoops; tiramisu and crema di Grom –which is biscuit flavoured and has lumps of biscuit in it. The biscuit is inspired, and I have to say it does rival Fassis. So, so good. I won’t be telling the Bellomos this, since Fassis seems to be near-Godlike for them.
***
Later, after school and the orange garden, I mention to Alberto that I haven’t yet worked out how to get to San Pietro in Vincoli, the church that Lidia has pointed out has housing Michelangelo’s statue of Moses. It is decided, since we will almost be driving past anyway, that we should go in and see it. The statue is huge, but my view is largely obscured by American tourists, flashing away. It is impressive, however.
***
Tonight presents me with further confusion over Italian eating habits, when I am given minestrone for dinner. How is it possible to one evening eat a huge bowl of seafood spaghetti, then grilled fish, potatoes and vegetables, and then desert, and then a couple of evenings later just an insipid broth with a few vegetables floating in the top? This lack of balance in their diet makes absolutely no sense to me, but even if I’m not full when I fall asleep I know that the meal was, at least, healthy.
***
Thursday 13th
On Thursday morning I am on rota for Women’s Views, the news website that I write articles for. The day begins with a minor drama when the hotel’s internet utterly fails, but I establish myself in the Bellomos’ apartment and have a productive morning. I write up stories on the risk to pregnant women caught in the floods in Pakistan, cuts to Planned Parenthood in the US, the Green Party leader’s view on domestic violence and education, Kenya being named as a world leader in gender reform, and a filmmaker who in the name of art made friends with every letcherous stranger who approached her in the supermarket. The articles can be read here – www.womensviewsonnews.org
After a lunch of risotto I finally get round to writing my Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition article, which I am fairly impressed with by the time I’ve finished. Then we head off to pick up B&B from school.
***
Bea surprises me today by fully listening when I tell her English phrases, and then repeating them back to me without any prompting. Bene goes the other way and refuses – a role reversal seems to have somehow happened. I get Bea to say ‘I am a clever girl’ as we walk to the orange garden, and suddenly everything in the world is clever –‘clever banana’, ‘clever car’, ‘WHAT a clever tree!’ It is very bizarre, but I don’t correct it.
At the park Alan Lyle (he had his birthday party in the park on my third day here) and his wife Tina are providing craft equipment and supervising the making of bracelets. This is a godsend, and B&B spend a long time constructing their jewellery from purple and pink spongy paper (‘Look Loooosy!’) Bene doesn’t momentarily burst into tears, and they are both so good that I feel I have to emphasise this to Lidia when she returns. Full of love for the twinnies today!
Tomorrow, I will buy some stickers.
Bea is upset in the car because Alberto promised to take her out to eat snails, but, as Lidia now informs me, he ‘has gone off kite-surfing and left ‘is phone at ‘ome’. Cue Bea crying all the way back, only to find Alberto waiting on the pavement outside the hotel. The crying stops, they go off for snails, and me, Lidia and Bene go across the road for a Chinese. It is the Chinese, I am informed, that the Italian celebrities go to. Unfortunately we don’t see any (not that I would know if we did), but we do have a lovely feast of spring rolls, dumplings, crispy beef, black rice and shrimps. Bene is excited because her crispy beef has come with an onion carved into the shape of a lotus. It is, in all honesty, pretty impressive. At the next table, a woman has a carrot carved into the shape of a parrot. Surreal.
Back at the apartment, Alberto sees the background on my laptop, which is me, Mel, Katy, Louise, Leah and Lauren dressed up as dead schoolgirls for Lonsdale extrav in second year (so long ago now!), complete with ridiculous back-combed hair, suspenders and eyeliner scars all over our faces. He says we are immoral.
I don’t know how to respond... so I just laugh. Unsure if this is the correct response, but never mind!
xxx
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